El Loco's Next Gig: He maEl Loco's Next Gig: He May Nab a Security Council Seat y nab a security council seat

About the Author

Peter BrookesSenior Fellow, National Security AffairsDouglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy

Despite his lunatic anti-American rant last week, El
Loco is in the running for a seat on the United Nations
Security Council.

Sure, with all his blustering and bloviating, Venezuela's
President Hugo Chavez exposed himself not as a great, global
statesman and merciful humanitarian (as he'd like to be seen), but
as a disruptive, dangerous drama queen.

Fortunately, there's a chance that the unmasking of the
real Chavez may have set the stage for scuttling Venezuela's
chances of sitting on the Security Council come 2007.

By Oct. 16, Latin American and Caribbean nations must vote, by
secret ballot, for the region's next representative on the Security
Council (replacing Argentina, whose term expires at year's end).
The 10 non-permanent members each serve two-year terms, (with five
new ones each year), joining the five permanent members for a
15-seat council.

Once the various regional blocks have their nominees, the
192-member U.N. General Assembly must approve the candidates in
another secret ballot by a two-thirds vote.

As it stands now, Venezuela (which has held the seat several
times in the past) and U.N. founding member Guatemala (which has
never been on the council) are the top contenders for the region's
chair.

Washington and a number of its allies, such as Colombia and the
Central American nations, are supporting tiny Guatemala, but the
Caribbean and big powers like Argentina, Brazil and Chile and are
leaning toward oil-rich Venezuela.

Chavez has worked tirelessly to gain support, using cut-throat
energy politics and billions in petro-dollars to win - or coerce -
the hearts and minds of other regional players. For instance,
Venezuela bailed Argentina out from its financial crisis with the
IMF.

To bolster his chances in the General Assembly vote, Chavez
recently circled the globe on a diplomatic charm offensive,
drumming up support from dictators and despots from Iran and Syria
to Belarus and Vietnam.

No doubt one of Caracas' motivations for buying $3 billion in
Russian weapons (including two dozen advanced fighters, more than
50 helicopters and 100,000 assault rifles) was to sew up Moscow's
support. And in energy-crazed Beijing, now the world's No. 2 energy
consumer, Chavez pledged to shift oil/gas exports to China from
other markets - a veiled reference to his northern nemesis, the
United States.

But while Caracas seemed like a shoo-in for the Latin
American-Caribbean seat, its candidacy just might be in jeopardy
due to el presidente's over-the-top buffoonery in New York
last week.

Let's hope so. Nabbing a Security Council seat would only
embolden Chavez - who's clearly trying to lead a global coalition
to confront the United States.

And the council would be further debilitated in dealing
with rogue regimes. For instance, Chavez is also chummy with the
U.N.'s other bad boy, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The
last thing we need is a "loose cannon" like Venezuela throwing its
vote behind Iran's nuclear-weapons program on the Security
Council.

North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other
unsavory, anti-American types are surely to get a pass with
Caracas, too.

Chavez's regional supporters should really think twice about
voting Venezuela into their U.N. seat - for the reasons above, but
also for the region's own good. Chavez's regional agenda - a
troubling military buildup, brazen political meddling in other
Latin nation's elections and even promoting revolution - is bad
news for everybody.

Fortunately, the balloting at both the regional-level and at the
General Assembly is secret. So leaders whose private doubts about
Chavez were confirmed last week can do the right thing without
paying a penalty. (He'd know some "friends" betrayed him - but not
which ones.)

If the United Nations is to play a role in the critical
international-security issues at stake over the next two years, it
had best deny Chavez's bid for a bully pulpit on the world
stage.

Peter Brookes, a
senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is the author of "A
Devil's Triangle: Terrorism, WMD and Rogue States."

About the Author

Peter BrookesSenior Fellow, National Security AffairsDouglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy